⚖️Webinar "Accountability"

Political finance accountability is a cornerstone of electoral and political integrity and refers to mechanisms that aim to hold electoral actors to account in case of non-compliance with applicable regulations. Accountability mechanisms at both the European and national levels are intended to ensure the effective enforcement of regulations through oversight and sanctioning systems.Accountability is a shared value within the EU region and the EU has a critical role in promoting best practices among MS. Across the EU region, there are a variety of political finance regulators tasked with the supervision and enforcement of accountability mechanisms.

The main finding was that there are discrepancies between the rules at the EU level and at the national level regarding the financing of EP elections and the planned strategies to improve political accountability in the financial area. The tracking of money has become a common theme for most national supervisors. There is also a gap between the EU and EU Member States in terms of enforcement mechanisms that needs to be addressed.

Recommendations of the webinar:

• Close the gap between European regulations of European political parties and national regulations of national political parties, especially where national campaign issues are of cross-border nature, such as online political advertising.

• Set up a network of oversight bodies under the control of the European regulator (Authority for European Political Parties and European Political Foundations, APPF) to ensure the uniform and consistent application of EU regulations at the MS level and bridge the gap in political finance implementation. While the Authority does not have the mandate to regulate national political parties, the APPF could empower national oversight bodies to perform their duties more effectively.

• Remove the current financial firewall that prevents European political parties from participating in a significant number of national EP electoral campaigns. The absence of a clear distinction between national campaigns in a MS in a "national" EP election campaign, and European campaigns through the holding of European campaign activities in a MS significantly affects the ability of European political parties to engage in campaigning.

You can find the full webinar uploaded online here.

The project is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.